Help:Naming conventions (ships)
This article describes Wikia's conventions for naming articles about ships and for referring to ships in the body of articles. Article title Ships share names with people, places, animals and other things. So articles about ships must be named to distinguish them from the things they are named after. Civilian ships Civilian ships should follow standard Wikipedia naming conventions. In particular: If a ship is best known in combination with a ship prefix, use the prefix as part of the name: * (compare John W. Brown) * [[PS Waverley|PS Waverley]] (compare Waverley) Do not use slashes or other punctuation within the ship prefix: * (not 'M/V Dunedin Star ) * (not 'S.S. Christopher Columbus ) If more than one prefix was used, choose the best-known and create a redirect from the other: * should have a redirect from A ship not known by a prefix should appear under its name only, if that is unambiguous: * Niña But when the name is ambiguous, append disambiguation information in parentheses as usual. The date of launching can be used if there are several ships with the same name: * ''Santa Maria'' (ship) (compare Santa Maria) * ''Nautilus'' (1800 submarine) (compare Nautilus (submarine)) Military ships For ships of navies that have standard ship prefixes, use the prefix in the name of the article: * (compare monitor) * (compare Queen Mary) * [[SMS Seydlitz|SMS Seydlitz]] (compare Seydlitz) * [[USCGC Munro (WHEC-724)|USCGC Munro]] (compare Munro) Do not use periods after each letter: * (not "U.S.S. Monitor ) Do not use the hull classification symbol as a prefix: * (not "CVN Nimitz ) For ships of navies or nations that don't have a standard ship prefix, name the article (Nationality) (type) (Name): * [[Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov|Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov]] (compare Kuznetsov) * [[German battleship Bismarck|German battleship Bismarck]] (compare Bismarck) Do not be over-specific about the ship type: * [[Japanese aircraft carrier Chitose|Japanese aircraft carrier Chitose]] (not "Japanese light aircraft carrier Chitose") Do not make up a ship prefix for a navy that did not use one. Thus: * [[German battleship Bismarck|German battleship Bismarck]] (not "DKM Bismarck ) * [[Japanese battleship Yamato|Japanese battleship Yamato]] (not "HIJMS Yamato or "IJN Yamato ) * [[Italian battleship Giulio Cesare|Italian battleship Giulio Cesare]] (not "RM Giulio Cesare ) * [[Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov|Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov]] (not "RFS Admiral Kuznetsov ) Some authors use invented prefixes for consistency with "USS", "HMS" etc. It is not a mistake to do that, but at Wikipedia we choose not to. To forestall attempts to move articles to the wrong place, you might want to add redirects from popular invented ship prefixes. So the article [[Japanese battleship Yamato|Japanese battleship Yamato]] could have redirects from IJN Yamato and HIJMS Yamato. However, it is common practice to backdate the use of a prefix so that it applies to ships of that navy that historically would not have been referred to with that prefix, and Wikipedia follows this practice: * (not "English ship Royal Charles ) * (not "United States ship Constellation ) This is consistent with the ordinary Wikipedia naming practice of using modern names for articles even if different from the contemporary name (thus Livy, not "Titus Livius"; 205 BC, not "The year of the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Publius Licinius Crassus", etc). The article should indicate how the ship was known to her contemporaries (if known), by quoting relevant documents. Write U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard hull numbers with a hyphen (the USN itself is not consistent in this respect). Coast Guard hull numbers always start with a "W". Write pennant numbers with neither hyphen nor space (this matches the number as it typically appears on the side of the ship). Note that not all pennant numbers have an initial letter ("flag superior"), for example . Also note that in recent decades the Australian and Canadian navies have moved towards American-style three letter pennant number prefixes. These should be written with a space, for example . Ships with hull number only Many types of ship, such as American PT boats and German U-boats, are officially known only by a hull number. In these cases, it can be best to spell out the ship type (e.g. German submarine U-238), but be sure the ship type name is correct. In many cases, the designation is not an abbreviation and may not relate directly to a ship's class or even type. For the main article, create a redirect or a disambiguation page at the short form. For example, PT-109 can be a redirect to Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109, but U-238 must be a disambiguation page, because of its alternative meaning of Uranium 238. Articles about vessels with a numerical name should be titled like , , etc. Country and navy-specific articles Articles which name the country or navy in the article title should conform to the country-specific guidelines. This states that: In general, country-specific articles should be named using the form: "(item) of (country)"... This will usually hold true in other geography-specific topics, such as for cities, continents, provinces, states, etc. Note navies are country or geography-specific. * List of ships of the line of Italy (not "List of Italian ships of the line") * List of naval ships of Portugal (not "List of Portuguese naval ships") * List of ships of the Canadian Navy (not "List of Canadian Navy ships") * Early naval vessels of New Zealand (not "Early New Zealand naval vessels") * Coastal Forces of the Royal Navy (not "Royal Navy Coastal Forces") Disambiguating ships with the same name It is extremely common for many ships to share a name. Therefore disambiguation needs special attention. For modern ships, use the ship's hull numbers (hull classification symbols) (for the United States Navy) or pennant numbers (for the Royal Navy and many European and Commonwealth navies) if it is available, sufficiently unique, and well known. * and * and For older ships predating the modern pennant/hull number system, the most widely recogniseable fact about the ship is its date of launch or construction. This is a unique identifier for a ship with a particular name in navies where names are customarily re-used and is applicable generally to all ships, unlike local naval identification numbers: * , , , etc. In a few cases, one ship is so much better-known than her namesakes that she need not be disambiguated: * Horatio Nelson's flagship is at ; other Victory''s are disambiguated at HMS Victory (disambiguation). * Charles Darwin's vessel of exploration is at ; other ''Beagles are disambiguated at HMS Beagle (disambiguation). If a ship had several hull numbers in her career, use the best-known (but give all her hull numbers in the lead section, and make redirects from the others): * , not ACV-9, or CVHP-9. (She is best known for her actions in the Second Battle of the Atlantic, when she was CVE-9.) If none of several hull numbers is clearly the best-known, use the first: * , not AVP-18, AVD-5, or APD-32. If no hull number is available, or if it is not well-known, use the ship's year of launching if known — like human birthdays, every ship has one — otherwise some other appropriate initial date, such as commissioning, or the date she is first mentioned in the historical record: * , , , etc. It should be noted that European navies reuse pennant numbers, so ships of the same name may have the same pennant numbers; the second and third ''Sir Galahad'', for example. So you may need to use the launch date to disambiguate these. If there is only one article for a given ship name, you should still pre-emptively disambiguate it, creating a redirect from the plain name: * There was only one Wilkes-Barre in the US Navy, so redirects to This means that when a second article is written about another ship with that name (and so the plain name becomes a disambiguation page), you do not have to go round fixing all the links. It also means that you do not have to check each time you link to a ship whether or not to disambiguate. Make an index page that lists all the ships in a navy with the same name: * lists eight USS Enterprises * lists 10 HMS Vanguards For well-known names that are shared between navies, or between military and civilian ships, also disambiguate at the usual Wikipedia disambiguation page for the name: * Nautilus (disambiguation) refers to ships named Nautilus. * Discovery refers to ships named Discovery. Referring to ships Put the ship's name in italics, but not the prefix or hull number: * USS Nimitz (not "USS Nimitz" or "USS Nimitz ) "The" is not needed before the name of a ship (but neither is it wrong): * was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar ("The Victory..." is also OK.) You may give the ship's prefix the first time you introduce the ship, but you should not repeat it on future mentions. You need not give the prefix at all if it is obvious from the context (for example, in a list of ships of the Royal Navy there is no need to repeat "HMS" each time). Make a link from the first mention of each ship in an article, even if Wikipedia does not yet have an article about that ship. If you do not know how to disambiguate it, link to the index page for its name: this will allow the link to be found and fixed later. Do not give the hull number or other disambiguation information unless it is immediately relevant. Someone who needs to know can follow the link: * was Nelson's flagship at the Nile (not "Vanguard (1787) ...") * was sunk at the Battle of Midway (not "Yorktown (CV-5) ...") * But in "the later was laid down as Cabot but renamed in honour of the earlier " the disambiguation information is needed. Possessive form of ship's name When using the possessive form of a ship's name in articles, use the template to provide proper styling and avoid coding problems that can occur when an apostrophe follows italicized text. The apostrophe and "s" should not be italicized: :Linked names: s displays as s :Regular names: Ticonderoga s displays as Ticonderoga s Ships that changed name or nationality An article about a ship that changed name or nationality should be placed at the best-known name, with a redirect from the other name: * Article at , with a redirect from [[Commonwealth ship Naseby|Commonwealth ship Naseby]] * Article at Cutty Sark, with a redirect at Maria do Amparo * Article at [[Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov|Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov]], with a redirect from [[Soviet aircraft carrier Kuznetsov|Soviet aircraft carrier Kuznetsov]] But if the ship had significant careers in two navies, it may be best to create two articles with one ending at the transfer and the other beginning then, depending on how long the articles are and how extensive the transformation of the ship. * became [[ARA General Belgrano|ARA General Belgrano]] Ships whose class and designation changed If an entire class of ships was reclassified (such as in the 1975 USN ship reclassification), be consistent and make the decision once for all the ships of the class: * The and s are named with the FF (frigate) classification, not DE (destroyer escort). (Justification: known as frigates for the majority of their service.) * The s are named with pennant numbers starting K, not F. (Justification: best known for service during World War II.) Ship classes Articles about a [[ship class|ship class]] should be named (Lead ship name) "class" (type); for example, . Do not be overly specific in the type; for example, use "aircraft carrier", not "light escort fleet assault carrier". Use the singular form of the ship type; for example, "submarine", not "submarines". Uses of the class as a noun are not hyphenated, while adjectival references are hyphenated, as in : if in doubt, do not hyphenate. Note the separation of submarine as a separate link; this is not required, but does allow the reader to look up the general term directly instead of being plunged into the technical discussion of a ship class. When the class is named after its lead ship, italicise the name of that ship, for example the s are named after . But when the class is named after something its members share in common, don't italicise the name, for example the s are named after battles: there is no HMS Battle (or at least none in that class). Ship classes may need to be disambiguated: * By nationality: [[United States Porpoise class submarine|United States Porpoise-class submarine]] and [[British Porpoise class submarine|British Porpoise-class submarine]] * By date: ''King George V''-class battleship (1911) and ''King George V''-class battleship (1939) Category:Help